Cuban independent journalist, Carlos Serpa Maceira, reports to #OZT I Accuse the Cuban government that yesterday representatives of about a dozen opposition organizations congregated at Havana’s Parque Central [Central Park] to culminate a day of remembrance in honor of Pedro Luis Boitel and dedicated to Orlando Zapata Tamayo. Representatives of Partido Pro-Derechos Humanos [Pro-Human Rights Party], Moviemiento Andréi Sajárov [Andrei Sakharov Movement], Movimiento Pro-Derechos Civiles Rosa Parks [Rosa Parks Pro-Civil Rights Movement], Liga Cívica Martiana [José Martí Civic League], Presidio Político Pedro Luis Boitel and others. The opposition activists unfurled signs related to the commemoration, chanted slogans again the government and in honor of Boitel and Zapata.

Governmental paramilitary brigades of rapid response surrounded the opposition activists, assaulted them (Serpa was almost strangled, and another activist has a sprained arm) and dragged them to the police station on the corners of Zulueta and Dragones in Havana, which is about 150 meters from the park. They were subjected to threats and abuses at the police station, and were finally released from the holding cells late in the evening. However, independent journalist Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias is still being held at the station, and the authorities are threatening to “deport” him back to his province, Camagüey.

Serpa Maceira further denounces that police impounded his identification, phone and camera during the arrest. When they returned his belongings, all pictures from the action at Parque Central had been erased. The police has retained his identification card thus confining him to his residence in a country where failure to produce your identification papers, which are constantly checked by police, can be grounds for indefinite arrest and confinement.